, is developed from ve points of view. Allard proposes a debate around the denitions and historical evolutionof the term; Neira assumes the reality of the graphic design inChile; Eyquem establishes a denition of design carried out fromhis own experience; Puga lightens us about the real possibilities of industry in the matter, and nally Eames allows us, throughexpressions of his approach to the design process, to return to thebeginning: what is design?

A discipline covers the range of subjects,techniques and information that dene a eldof knowledge. Disciplines like law, medicineor philosophy include ways of learning andobeying, ways of knowing and conforming. Therst task of any new intellectual discipline is tospecify the object of study, and the limits of thesubject matter.It is hard to dene the discipline of design, and what properly belongs to it. The term design isapplied indiscriminately and in different contextsto a broad range of skills, from graphic design,fashion design and interior design to architecturaldesign, product design, corporate design andstrategic design, to name a few. Though there have been many attempts by academics to unify these areas of knowledge thedebate on what “design is, is far from resolved,

Bourdelle, L’Arch de Herakles

Los diseñadores en ChileDesigners in Chile

ARQ

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and interpretations of the term. He believes that

“design”

, like many other term, creates ambiguity because it has more than one common meaning.It can refer to a process –the act or practice of designing; it can mean the result of that process–a design, a sketch, a plan or a model; it canbe the products manufactured with the help of a design –as in designed goods; or it can be theappearance or look of a product –as in

“I like thedesign of that dress.”

A further source of conict in the denition of design is the provisional nature of its language. The meaning of the word design has changedover time, so any attempt to dene it must takeinto account its historical evolution.During the Renaissance, for example,

disegno(which, in practice, meant drawing)

is the creative,conceptual phase that normally precedes theexecution of a painting, a sculpture or other work of art. Although all artists considered design part of their artistic activity it was not until the 18

“Design is what happens when art meets industry,when people start making decisions about how mass- produced products should look.”

1

“Industrial design

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is a process of creation, inventionand denition that is separate from the means of production. It involves the eventual synthesis of contributing and sometimes conicting factors in athree-dimensional concept, and in a material statewhich can be reproduced by mechanical means. It is specically tied to the development of industrializationand mechanization that began around 1770 with theBritish industrial revolution.”

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“The industrial designer has a specialist expertise invisual appearances. He is hired by an industrialist for a single purpose: to raise the demand for his products by increasing their attraction for consumers. He is paid according to how well he does this. The industrial designer’s success or failure depends on his skill at creating and sustaining prots. The designer is aboveall an industrial technician, not an educator of public taste. In the current conditions his business is to create prots for his employer.”

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“Everyone is a designer. Everything we do almost all the time is design, because design is basic to all human activity. The program or the organization of any act with a predetermined purpose is a process of design (…) Design is writing an epic poem, making amural, painting a work of art, composing a concerto.But design is also cleaning and tidying a desk drawer,baking an apple pie, picking sides in a street basketball game, bringing up a child (…) Design is the conscious effort to impose meaningful order.”

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“In its most general sense design is a form of politics:the human species struggling to give shape to its surroun-dings and its society in order to satisfyits needs.”

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What is clear is that the limits of any disciplineare more blurry than precise, and in general theradius of one overlaps the boundaries of others.In his book

Design History and the

History of Design

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, art and design historian John Walker putsforward the debate on the different denitions

In some academic circles in the UKand the USA design means industrialdesign. What we call graphic design ortextile design, for example, can also beconsidered industrial since the designof a graphic or a textile is normallymade by industrial processes.